Dear all, The new CamPoS (Cambridge Philosophy of Science) seminar series continues this Wednesday, 17 October, 1-2:30pm in HPS Seminar Room 2. Emily Thomas, PhD student in the Faculty of Philosophy, will give a talk entitled "Catharine Cockburn on substantival space: a 'new' 18th-century solution". The abstract is below.
All are very welcome, and we hope to see many of you there. Best wishes, Vashka -- Substantivalism is the thesis that space (or spacetime) is a concrete, irreducible entity. Early modern substantivalists face a problem: as space is often held to possess properties that are traditionally only attributed to God - including eternality, infinity and immutability - early moderns who argue that space is a substance run the risk of 'polytheistic blasphemy', the blasphemy of positing a second God. Early moderns generally take one of two strategies to avoid this: they either claim like Descartes that space is a substance but deny that it has divine properties, or they claim like Newton that space has divine properties but deny that it is a substance. In the early eighteenth century, the English philosopher Catharine Cockburn puts forward a 'new' account of substantival space inspired by a neo-Platonic thesis known as the Great Chain of Being. This paper examines that account, and the novel third solution it offers. _____________________________________________________ Sent by the CamPhilEvents mailing list. To unsubscribe or change your membership options, please visit the list information page: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEvents Posts are archived here: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEventsArchive
